HOT TOPICS:

More efficient manufacturing

Pioneer Press

Posted:
12/17/2013 12:01:00 AM CST

Updated:
12/17/2013 07:35:18 PM CST

I believe the writer of "Many administrations, not just this one" (Dec. 13) has made some erroneous statements regarding manufacturing in the United States. PBS televised a series -- I believe for the first time during the first quarter of 2012 -- called "America Revealed." The fourth episode of that series was subtitled "Made in America." Quoting the presenter on that show, "Manufacturing is not really disappearing from America, it just doesn't look like it used to." According to this program, the value of goods produced in the United States is still larger than the value of goods produced by any other country in the world (we are No. 1). The total value of annual production in the U.S. is about $1.7 trillion, and that value has nearly doubled since 1990. However, since we have become ever more focused on efficiency in manufacturing, the number of manufacturing jobs has declined by about a third over the past 20 years. I am not going to pretend to be a trained economist, but I am confident in saying that in the long run, society as a whole benefits from increased efficiency in our economic system, and U. S. manufacturing certainly appears to be delivering that.

"America Revealed" is still available on the PBS website, and it is well worth viewing.

Paul Peterson, Shoreview

Plowing solution: off-street parking

There has been a great uproar recently about the plowing in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The plow drivers have rightly blamed parked cars for the poor job.

Advertisement

Meanwhile, the Twin Cities have quite a number of vacant properties in these same neighborhoods. Programs are in place to upgrade these houses and try to sell them. The cost would be in the millions. Couldn't they just knock down a few of these houses and create off-street parking for the block? I would guess that an arc light and some asphalt is much cheaper than a remodel or a rebuild.

Through the years, many businesses and churches have purchased adjacent properties to expand parking. Of course, a corner of the lot would have space for an urban sustainable garden. The era of single-car households passed about 40 years ago. Middle-of-the-block, off-street parking could be the future in the Twin Cities.

Tom Leary, St. Paul

Republican health care policy

The lead article Dec. 12 (" 'MNsure. Please hold' ") is yet another piece about problems with the MNsure exchange and call center. It raises further troubling questions about the Dayton administration's competence to govern our state. It once again points out the Affordable Care Act is neither affordable nor compassionate.

But let's be frank -- politically, the disaster that is MNsure may be great political fodder for Republicans today, but the hard reality is that if Republicans win in 2014, they are going to be accountable for it. The next Republican governor inherits the MNsure exchange and a population that, however bad its initial experience with ObamaCare, by January 2015 will be dependent on the exchange and the subsidies it provides. Republicans will be expected to make the exchange work better -- and that is a losing proposition unless the GOP puts a stake in the ground now.

Republicans shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the Affordable Care Act is fundamentally flawed. It cannot be fixed. It cannot be made better, and Republicans shouldn't set false expectations that they can do "big government" health care better than the Democrats. Ultimately, "big government" is "big government."

Republican health care policy should not be limited by Gov. Dayton and ObamaCare.

Republican health care policy must focus on strengthening the private health care market and providing a path off the exchange and into the private, individual insurance market. Republicans are not about creating a government health care system; Republicans are about ensuring that all Minnesotans, even the most vulnerable, can access the private markets for health insurance and ensuring that Minnesotans have the security of access to actual medical care.

It is fortunate for Minnesotans that Republicans understand compassion better than Gov. Dayton and the Democrats understand the economics of health care.

Jeff Johnson, Plymouth

The writer is a candidate for Republican Party of Minnesota endorsement for governor.

Winning hearts and minds

Ed Lotterman wrote that the military's share of the federal budget is 17 percent, while the foreign aid share is around 1 percent ("Effects of U.S. military abroad hard to quantify," Dec. 12). In this post-modern-battlefield world, shouldn't those ratios be reversed?

Our national security is threatened today by fanatical fundamentalists willing to fly airliners into tall buildings. These radical individuals are not intimidated by tanks or aircraft carriers. They are not afraid to die -- death means martyrdom. Those who drive these zealots cannot be reasoned with either. These puppet masters claim to be warriors for a cause, but they are just plain nihilists. Our military does a good job of attacking and killing the fundamentalists and their controllers, but we first need to find them.

That means we must first win over the hearts and minds of the local population where the terrorist cells now find safe-haven. Many of these people look at the United States and other powerful western states as either oppressive dictatorial states or as ungoverned, hedonistic societies, neither of which they want to emulate. To win the propaganda war, our country needs to make huge investments in foreign aid, all of which can be paid for this with huge reductions in the Defense Department budget. The U.S. military budget is larger than the 15 next-largest military spenders combined. Decreasing the size of our military will make the United States look less like a bully and more like a cooperative partner interested in the advancement of people all over the world.

We should aim for a budget that is 10 percent Defense Department and 5 percent State Department, increasing foreign aid five-fold, while at the same time realizing a net 3 percent savings on the federal budget.